Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Index Finds AI Driving Rapid Container Adoption Across Australia, Shadow AI Causing Concern

• Shadow IT is creating business risk and security
  challenges
• Data sovereignty is a
  non-negotiable for Australian
  organisations
• Containers are the foundation
  of modern applications, with AI as the key
  driver

Sydney, Australia – March
4, 2026 –
Nutanix (NASDAQ:
NTNX), a leader in hybrid multicloud computing, today
announced the Australian findings of its eighth annual
Enterprise Cloud Index (ECI) survey and research report,
which measures global enterprise progress with cloud
adoption. This year’s report looked closely at the
challenges IT local executives face as they navigate the
rapid increase of AI use and need for application and
infrastructure modernisation in the enterprise.

The
rapid rise of AI adoption in the enterprise over the last
year is forcing a wave of infrastructure modernisation, as
companies race to build and run applications more
efficiently. In fact, containers have become a core
component of the enterprise application strategy with 90 per
cent of Australian respondents confirming AI is accelerating
their adoption of containers to improve speed, reliability,
and scalability.

“It is clear
Australian organisations are ready to embrace AI, but this
requires resilient, dependable, and well-governed
infrastructure. Containerisation has emerged as a
fundamental pillar in local AI and application strategies,
but broader adoption requires a reimagining of the
underlying infrastructure,” said Michael Alp, Managing
Director for A/NZ at Nutanix. “Rather than manage a
two-speed infrastructure stack, a common operating
environment to manage both containerised and traditional
workloads would address key concerns like shadow IT and data
sovereignty.”

Key findings from this year’s
report include:

• Shadow IT is creating AI
  challenges and security concerns: 72 per cent of
  respondents encounter AI applications or agents being
  implemented by employees in non-IT functions. Almost all (92
  per cent) of local leaders believe unauthorised AI use
  introduces risk, including exposure of sensitive data and
  intellectual property. This highlights the need for closer
  collaboration between IT teams and business stakeholders to
  ensure AI deployments remain secure, compliant, and aligned
  with organisational goals.
• Organisational
  silos create new AI risks: While AI adoption is
  driving innovation, it is also introducing operational
  challenges. The vast majority (84% per cent) of local
  respondents believe silos between business units and IT make
  it difficult to effectively execute technology initiatives,
  slowing deployment timelines and increasing
  complexity.
• Agents unlock enormous potential
  with organisations: Most Australian IT executives
  (70 per cent) also anticipate that AI agents will improve
  productivity and efficiency. 62 per cent expect AI agents to
  enhance customer or employee experiences. Additionally, some
  believe that AI agents can play a deeper role, with 58 per
  cent seeing potential for AI agents to create new products,
  services, or revenue streams.
• Data
  sovereignty is non-negotiable: For 89 per cent of
  Australian respondents, data sovereignty is a high priority
  when making infrastructure decisions – including where to
  utilise containers. This is in comparison to 80 per cent
  worldwide. More than half (60 per cent) of local leaders
  feel the need to run their infrastructure domestically,
  whether on-premises or through a local cloud region, largely
  due to security or data protection
  concerns.
• Containers are the foundation of
  modern applications, with AI as the key driver:
  Organisations are turning to containers to support
  AI-enabled workloads and modern application development. 85
  per cent of respondents expect the use of containers for
  applications to increase over the next three years, while 66
  per cent say they are already building new and legacy
  applications in containers. Nine in 10 respondents believe
  AI is accelerating container adoption which highlights why
  enterprises need to evolve their infrastructure strategies
  to handle containerised workloads.
• The
  directive to deploy AI applications comes from the top, but
  infrastructure is not ready to fully support it:
  Almost half (48 per cent) of respondents anticipate
  that their organisation will have more than five AI-enabled
  applications in the next three years. Yet if their
  organisation needed to deploy AI workloads on-premises, 87
  per cent believe their current infrastructure is not fully
  ready to support this.

For the eighth
consecutive year, Nutanix commissioned a global research
study to assess the state of cloud adoption,
containerisation, and GenAI application deployment.
Conducted in November 2025 by Wakefield Research, the survey
gathered responses from 1,600 cloud, IT, and engineering
executives with at least a manager-level title. Respondents
represent organisations with 500 or more employees across
Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan,
Mexico, the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,
Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United
States.

To learn more about the report and findings,
please download the full eighth annual ECI report, here.

About
Nutanix

Nutanix is a hybrid multicloud computing
leader, offering organisations a unified software platform
for running applications and AI and managing data anywhere.
With Nutanix, organisations can simplify operations for
traditional and modern applications, freeing them to focus
on business goals. Trusted by more than 29,000 customers
worldwide, Nutanix helps empower organisations to transform
digitally and power hybrid multicloud environments
consistently, simply, and
cost-effectively.

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